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IMPACT ON LOCAL COMMUNITIES 

OF THE RELEASE OF UNACCOMPANIED 

ALIEN MINORS AND THE NEED 

FOR CONSULTATION AND NOTIFICATION 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

IMMIGRATION AND BORDER SECURITY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

DECEMBER 10, 2014 

Serial No. 113–122 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TED POE, Texas 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

RAU ́ L LABRADOR, Idaho 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

RON DeSANTIS, Florida 

JASON T. SMITH, Missouri 

[Vacant] 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., 

Georgia 

PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

JUDY CHU, California 

TED DEUTCH, Florida 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

KAREN BASS, California 

CEDRIC RICHMOND, Louisiana 

SUZAN DelBENE, Washington 

JOE GARCIA, Florida 

HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York 

DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

SHELLEY HUSBAND, Chief of Staff & General Counsel 

PERRY APELBAUM, Minority Staff Director & Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION AND BORDER SECURITY

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina, Chairman 

TED POE, Texas, Vice-Chairman 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

RAU ́ L LABRADOR, Idaho 

GEORGE HOLDING, North Carolina 

[Vacant] 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

JOE GARCIA, Florida 

PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

GEORGE FISHMAN, Chief Counsel 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

DECEMBER 10, 2014 

Page 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

The Honorable Raul Labrador, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Idaho, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security . 1 

The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Immigration and 

Border Security .................................................................................................... 3 

The Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Virginia, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary ................................. 5 

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......... 7 

WITNESSES 

The Honorable Lou Barletta, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Pennsylvania 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 12 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 14 

The Honorable Adrian Smith, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Nebraska 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 16 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 18 

The Honorable Pete Olson, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Texas 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 22 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 23 

The Honorable Joseph Crowley, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of New York 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 26 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 28 

Leonard Scarcella, Mayor of Stafford, Texas 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 34 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 36 

Jessica M. Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies, Center for Immigration Studies 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 40 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 42 

Thomas M. Hodgson, Sheriff of Bristol County, Massachusetts 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 51 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 53 

Kristyn Peck, Associate Director of Children’s Services, U.S. Conference of 

Catholic Bishops 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 55 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 74 

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Material submitted by the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee 

on the Judiciary ................................................................................................... 8 
Page

IV 

Material submitted by Kristyn Peck, Associate Director of Children’s Services, 

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops .................................................................. 56 

Material submitted by the Honorable Raul Labrador, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of Idaho, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security ..................................................................................... 83 

Material submitted by the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee 

on Immigration and Border Security ................................................................. 90 

Material submitted by the Honorable Raul Labrador, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of Idaho, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security ..................................................................................... 118 

APPENDIX 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

Response to Questions for the Record from Jessica M. Vaughan, Director 

of Policy Studies, Center for Immigration Studies ............................................ 124 

Response to Questions for the Record from Thomas M. Hodgson, Sheriff 

of Bristol County, Massachusetts ....................................................................... 127 
(1) 

IMPACT ON LOCAL COMMUNITIES OF THE 

RELEASE OF UNACCOMPANIED ALIEN MINORS AND THE NEED FOR CONSULTATION 

AND NOTIFICATION 

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2014 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION AND BORDER SECURITY

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:55 p.m., in room 

2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Rau ́l R. Labrador presiding. 

Present: Representatives Gowdy, Goodlatte, Smith, Jordan, Labrador, Lofgren, Conyers, Jackson Lee, Gutierrez, and Garcia. 

Staff Present: (Majority) Dimple Shah, Counsel; Graham Owens, 

Clerk; and (Minority) Tom Jawetz, Counsel. 

Mr. LABRADOR. The Committee will come to order. 

Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recesses of 

the Committee at any time. 

We welcome everybody to today’s hearing on the impact of unaccompanied minors and the need for consultation and notification 

with local communities. And I begin by recognizing myself for an 

opening statement. 

The President’s November 20 actions to grant deferred action on 

work permits to up to 5 million illegal aliens continued a long pattern of Executive overreach. The President has sought to rewrite 

immigration laws passed by Congress by taking administrative action via policy memoranda. 

In our constitutional system, however, it is Congress that has 

plenary constitutional authority to establish U.S. immigration policy. Fundamental reform, which I support, requires democratic deliberation, public oversight, and, most of all, legislative action by 

Congress. 

The President’s policies to grant deferred action and not remove 

newly arriving undocumented aliens led to a surge of illegal immigration that reached its height earlier this year. In massive numbers, these aliens are being moved by the Administration into local 

communities throughout the United States. 

This hearing will focus on the consequences of the President’s actions in these communities and the need for the Federal Govern-
2 

ment to show them basic respect by notifying them of any immigrants being placed in their jurisdictions. 

President Obama’s 2012 directive granting deferred action to almost a million people here illegally who arrived as children spurred 

a surge of illegal immigration by young people from Central America. In 2012, the number of apprehended unaccompanied alien minors, referred to as UAMs, increased by over 100 percent from 

2011. 

In 2013, the Senate passed a bill that gave children of illegal 

aliens legal status as long as they arrived before the passage of the 

bill. That year, the number increased by another 80 percent. In 

2014, the President promised to issue another grant of Executive 

legalization, and the number increased by almost 180 percent. 

At the same time, the number of family units arriving illegally 

shot up nearly 360 percent. Many point to violence in Central 

America as the reason for the surge. Unfortunately, as we all 

know, there has always been violence in Central America. The only 

factor that has changed, and correlates directly with the surge on 

our southern borders, is the Obama administration’s policies. 

In May 2014 interviews, approximately 95 percent of over 200, 

‘‘other-than-Mexican’’ family units and UAMs told Border Patrol 

agents at Texas stations that they chose to immigrate to take advantage of a new law that grants a ‘‘permiso’’ to UAMs and to 

mothers with children. 

Despite this sudden surge and its clear explanation, the Obama 

administration actually deported 80 percent fewer minors than 

under the Bush administration in 2008. The reality is that almost 

90 percent of UAMs are placed with family members in the U.S. 

This information is apparently common knowledge in Central 

America. According to those immigrants interviewed by Border Patrol, the ‘‘permisos’’ were apparently the notices to appear in removal proceedings issued to unlawful aliens under which they are 

released pending a hearing before an Immigration Judge. 

All of these children and families are ultimately placed into communities. Numerous jurisdictions are receiving a massive influx of 

UAMs as they are transferred to Department of Health and 

Human Services facilities and are reunited with families who are 

guardians. The impact has been felt across the country, imposing 

a variety of costs, such as for education, health care, policing, and 

criminal justice. 

Their municipal and State services need to be prepared for the 

impact of sometimes hundreds of new residents. Texas alone received nearly 5,300 children in just a 7-month period at the beginning of this year. Miami-Dade District in Florida reported that it 

had 300 more students in a single quarter of last year, which costs 

about $2,000 more per additional student. The school board has requested additional Federal funding. Many of these children don’t 

know English. In New Orleans, it costs $2,400 to enroll an additional English language learner, but the Federal Government 

pitches in just $200. 

Local community leaders are displeased with the lack of communication from the Federal Government concerning the relocation of 

UAMs. Further, local officials are concerned about the health and 

welfare of communities in their jurisdictions, along with the impact 
3 

of the expense associated with dealing with this new population of 

taxpayers. 

In short, Governors and mayors have the right to know when the 

Federal Government is transporting a large group of individuals— 

in this case undocumented immigrants—into their jurisdiction. So 

far, HHS has refused to provide them with that information. In 

fact, a May 2013 report by The Pew Charitable Trusts stated that, 

‘‘Once the children are placed with sponsors, the Federal Government often loses track of them.’’ 

In numerous instances, the unaccompanied alien minors are 

being sent to localities until deportation proceedings conclude, despite disapproval by the local jurisdiction. Department of Justice officials have indicated that a large number of unaccompanied alien 

minors scheduled for deportation hearings never appear for their 

hearings. 

Due to the massive backlog of deportation hearings, those immigrants that do appear are likely to remain in their localities for 

years. The Obama administration has released these individuals 

without notifying State and local officials. The Administration has 

refused to respond to lawmakers’ requests for information about 

plans to relocate UAMs in their communities. One Governor said 

that his State learned from media reports that hundreds of children were placed in his State. 

In order to address this problem, a number of Members of Congress have introduced legislation requiring the Federal Government to notify State officials if UAMs are placed in their States. 

These various pieces of legislation address the need for States to 

be informed about the actions that the Federal Government is taking that impact their communities. 

With that, I thank our witnesses for their willingness to testify 

today. 

It is now my pleasure to recognize the Ranking Member of the 

Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, Ms. Lofgren of 

California, for her opening statement. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Before I turn to the topic of today’s hearing, I have to note that 

we are now just a matter of days away from returning to our districts and declaring an end to the 113th Congress. 

This Congress began with incredible promise. Just days after the 

2012 election, Speaker Boehner declared, ‘‘This issue of immigration reform has been around far too long.’’ And he said, ‘‘A comprehensive approach is long overdue.’’ 

Unfortunately, immigration reform will have to wait a little 

longer because, for the second time in 8 years, Republican leaders 

in the House have refused to bring to the floor an immigration bill 

passed by the U.S. Senate with strong bipartisan support. 

Of course, that isn’t all that we are leaving undone. This summer, when the President requested emergency spending to respond 

to the increased number of unaccompanied children apprehended 

along our southwest border, Republican leaders in the House chose 

not to pass a clean bill providing necessary funding and instead 

paired a spending bill with dangerous language rolling back longstanding protections for unaccompanied children fleeing the violence and persecution. 
4 

And in the next few days, the House is expected to pass the socalled Cromnibus, a bill that provides annual appropriations for 

every aspect of the Federal Government except for the department 

in charge of Homeland Security, emergency management, Presidential security, and the like. 

We are told that the irresponsible politics of brinkmanship is a 

thing of the past, but withholding long-term funding for the Department of Homeland Security seems motivated by the desire to 

revisit the issue of immigration when Republicans have a larger 

majority in the House and control of the Senate. It looks like the 

politics of brinkmanship may just be on temporary hold. We will 

see in a few short months. 

On today’s hearing, I think it is worth noting that although the 

hearing title refers to the impact on local communities of the release of unaccompanied children, only one of the bills that we will 

be hearing about on the first panel addresses that point. 

The bills introduced by Representative Barletta, Representative 

Olson, and Representative Sensenbrenner, our longtime colleagues 

on the Judiciary Committee, deal exclusively with the process by 

which the Federal Government contracts with providers to house 

unaccompanied children in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health and Human Services. 

Children housed in such facilities are under staff supervision at 

all times and are not integrated into the local community. They do 

not attend public schools. They receive all of their food, shelter, 

clothing, education, and medical services in accordance with the 

terms of a contract or grant managed by HHS. 

Now, over the summer, when the country became focused on the 

spike of unaccompanied children arriving in Texas, many communities generously offered to locate HHS facilities to house these 

children. In my own district, Representative Mike Honda, Anna 

Eshoo, and myself joined together with the mayor of San Jose, the 

Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, and others to issue a 

statement expressing our willingness to help. 

However, some communities reacted very negatively when HHS 

was trying to locate temporary shelters so that the agency could 

comply with its legal requirements and we could avoid the terrible 

situation of having little children in cold, crowded, concrete Border 

Patrol cells for weeks, literally weeks, on end. 

Now, I think much of the objection was motivated by fear, but 

I think a good bit may also have been motivated by a misunderstanding about precisely what was being done. Now, I believe some 

communities may not have understood that placement in an ORR 

facility pending release to a sponsor and, again, in compliance with 

longstanding legal requirements would not result in a flood of children enrolling in schools and receiving medical services at the local 

emergency room. If anything, locating an HHS shelter in a community may provide job opportunities and demands for goods and 

services. So I hope we can clear that confusion up today. 

One final point on these bills. I certainly do not object to the idea 

that the Federal Government should consult with State and local 

governments and increase the engagement of local communities. 

Like many Members, I was frustrated at times this summer by 

HHS’s failure to provide clear information to the public and to 
5 

Members of Congress regarding the need for additional housing. 

For communities like mine that wanted to be part of the solution, 

that wanted to bring children to Santa Clara County and help take 

care of them, the lack of information was counterproductive. 

But I do have concerns about the ways several of these bills 

would impose the notification and consultation requirement. Erecting substantial bureaucratic hurdles before HHS can award a grant 

could prove very troublesome and mean that children will be 

backed up in Border Patrol holding cells, which is really not suitable. 

Having visited these Border Patrol stations over the summer and 

to see these small children, 8-, 9-, and 10-year-old kids jammed in, 

sleeping on the floor, it is really a national disgrace. And so many 

of these children have fled record violence in Central America. 

Their treatment and holding in these cells is really not something 

that we want. 

Now, of course, when a child is released to an appropriate sponsor in accordance with current law, it will have some impact on the 

local community. The Supreme Court has long held that all children, regardless of status, are eligible to attend public school. And 

as the Chairman has said, often these children may require additional ESL services, for example. 

Every single State, including the District of Columbia, received 

at least one child who was placed in the custody of a suitable sponsor. But over half the children were placed with sponsors in just 

a few areas: California, Florida, New York, Texas, and the D.C. 

metro area. These are the areas with large Central American immigrant communities. And, importantly, many of these communities most heavily impacted have responded to the situation in a 

responsible and compassionate manner. 

I would note also that the Cromnibus that is before us provides $14 million in new funding for schools that have experienced a significant increase in the number of immigrant children enrolled in 

the current school year—a recognition that we should share in the 

additional burdens that schools will face in taking care of these 

children. 

With that, I would yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you, Ms. Lofgren. 

It is now my pleasure to recognize the Chairman of the Judiciary 

Committee, Mr. Goodlatte of Virginia, for his opening statement. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, it would have been wise and a good thing if the 

President had acknowledged the will of the voters in the elections 

last month and allowed time for the new Congress, the new House 

and the new Senate, to work on immigration reform. 

But, instead, the President has chosen his own version of brinkmanship. In fact, he has gone over the brink in what is one of the 

most massive constitutional power grabs that I have seen any 

President undertake in American history. This causes the House 

and the new Senate to focus on restraining the President and protecting the constitutional authority under Article I of the Congress 

to write immigration laws. 

Now, as we see the ramifications of this, one of those is the subject of the hearing that we have here today. Already, even before 
6 

the President’s unconstitutional action, based upon his earlier unconstitutional actions, we have seen a surge at the border. 

And based on numerous reports, it is apparent that word has 

passed through the grapevine back to Central America that 

women, children, and families who infiltrate the border are released into our communities. The only way to deter and stop the 

flow into the United States is to change such expectations by implementing consequences. 

Through one Executive action after another, the Obama administration has sent a signal to unlawful immigrants that, once they 

get here, they can remain here in violation of the law without consequence. When the former head of ICE under the Obama administration, John Sandweg, says, ‘‘If you are a run-of-the-mill immigrant here illegally, your odds of getting deported are close to zero,’’ 

news of that reality travels by word of mouth at the speed of 

sound. Prospective unlawful immigrants jump at the opportunity. 

The President just reiterate this message with his recent announcement of an unconstitutional Executive legalization for millions of unlawful aliens. Indeed, on November 20th, 2014, President Obama announced one of the biggest constitutional power 

grabs ever by a President. He has declared unilaterally that, by his 

own estimation, more than 4 million unlawful immigrants will be 

free from the legal consequences of their lawless actions. Not only 

that, he will, in addition, bestow upon them gifts such as work authorization and other immigration benefits. 

This, despite the fact that President Obama has stated over 20 

times in the past that he doesn’t have the constitutional power to 

take such steps on his own. 

Additionally, the remaining illegal population, even if encountered by law enforcement, will likely never be removed due to 

President Obama’s rewrite of his Administration’s own so-called 

immigration enforcement priorities. Steps needed to reduce the 

surge at the border, changes in the Administration’s permissive approach to immigration enforcement, simply are not being taken. 

An unaccompanied alien minor is a child who has no lawful immigration status in the United States, has not attained 18 years 

of age, and with respect to whom there is no parent or legal guardian in the United States or no parent or legal guardian in the 

United States available to provide care and fiscal custodian. 

When these minors are apprehended, by law they are placed into 

the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health and Human Services. The Trafficking Victims 

Protection Reauthorization Act requires all Federal agencies to 

transfer these children to HHS within 72 hours of identification. 

Housing the unlawful migrants costs American taxpayers $252 per 

child per day, and children remain in HHS custody for an average 

length of stay of 67 days. 

The unaccompanied minors are often brought across the border 

by smugglers, who are paid by the children’s parents, who are already in the U.S. illegally. Once in HHS custody, they are most 

often subsequently reunited with a parent or legal guardian pursuant to Department of Homeland Security policy and regulation. Oftentimes, the person they are reunited with is the same person who 

paid to smuggle the minor here in the first place. 
7 

Numerous jurisdictions are receiving a massive influx of unaccompanied minors as they are transferred to HHS facilities and 

then released and reunited with families or guardians. The impact 

has been felt in nearly every single State, with the highest number 

of placements in Texas, California, New York, Virginia, and Maryland. 

Indeed, HHS had planned to house UAMs at a recently closed 

college in Virginia. Saint Paul’s College in Lawrenceville was being 

eyed to house 500 unaccompanied alien minors, mostly from Central America, who were apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border. A 

contract signed on June 12 would have given Saint Paul’s College, 

which closed last year amid financial difficulties and accreditation 

issues, $160,000 a month for the next 5 months. 

It was not until Friday, June 13, that the local government received an email notification after-hours from the Federal Government that a contract had been signed and implementation had 

started. It was further stated that it was a done deal and that HHS 

would start delivering minors on Thursday, June 19. But the done 

deal unraveled after local residents expressed outrage over the 

plan. 

Across the country, the new population of minors has caused a 

drain on public education, health care, welfare, emergency management, and other public services. To make matters worse, there appears to be no real notification process from HHS to notify the communities in which these minors are being sent. 

Unfortunately, President Obama’s self-made border crisis has 

created many negative consequences for our country. And the 

States have arguably been impacted the most by the Administration’s disastrous policies. 

As tens of thousands of unaccompanied children and teenagers 

from Central America have flooded our borders, the Obama administration has refused to take the steps necessary to return them 

home quickly and safely. It instead has placed these minors in all 

50 States while their cases work their way through the system. 

Because there is no procedure in place to notify State governments when these children are dropped off, States have been forced 

to pick up the pieces and clean up the Obama administration’s 

mess. At the very least, in order to be adequately prepared to deal 

with this population, communities must be notified with regard to 

who will arrive. 

Today we will hear from local officials who have dealt with this 

problem firsthand and also hear from several Members of Congress 

who have introduced legislation to address this pressing issue. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and yield back. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you, Chairman Goodlatte. 

It is now my pleasure to recognize the Ranking Member of the 

Judiciary Committee, Mr. Conyers of Michigan, for his opening 

statement. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Chairman Labrador. 

I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a letter from 

12 mayors and 1 county executive that is entitled ‘‘We Will Provide 

Compassion and Care for Children: A Statement of the Nation’s 

City and County Leaders.’’ 

Mr. LABRADOR. Without objection. 
8 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you very much. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
9 
10 

Mr. CONYERS. Now, Mr. Chairman, here we are in the final days 

of the 113th Congress, the final hearing before the Immigration 

Subcommittee. And so what can we say in this Congress that Congress has done to fix the immigration system that we all agree is 

failing our businesses, our communities, and, most of all, our 

American families? 

It has been 531 days since the Senate passed bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform legislation that would have made 

meaningful and long-overdue reforms. A similar House bill, H.R. 

15, has 201 bipartisan cosponsors. The Congressional Budget Office 

reports that we could reduce our budget deficit by $900 billion over 

20 years through these proposals. 

But House leadership has steadfastly refused to bring either 

measure to the floor. Instead, the only immigration legislation that 

has been considered on the House floor has focused on attacks on 

the Administration, some of which we hear in the Judiciary Subcommittee, and hardworking immigrants. 

We have considered legislation to strip protections from child victims of trafficking, persecution, torture, and abuse. The House 

leadership has also brought bills to the floor to strip deferred action 

from children who have received protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA, program, and to prevent the 

Administration from offering similar protections to the parents of 

the United States citizens and lawful permanent residents who 

meet the strict criteria. 

None of these bills would have helped fix our broken immigration 

system, and none of them ever represented a serious effort to legislate. I note all of this because I am disappointed that we were not 

able to come together on bipartisan legislative solutions to our broken immigration system. 

While we may be ending the 113th Congress with more of a 

whimper than a bang, I do nonetheless remain hopeful that, in the 

114th Congress, Members from both sides of the aisle will come together to finally pass comprehensive legislative reform. And I, of 

course, remain ready to work with my colleagues on this and many 

other important issues. 

Now, let me turn to the specific topic of today’s hearing. 

This Committee last examined the issue of unaccompanied children coming to our country from Central America in late June. At 

that hearing, we learned that tens of thousands of children were 

fleeing extreme violence in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. 

And after unaccompanied children are apprehended along the 

border, guess what? Our laws require that they be transferred to 

the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services 

within 72 hours. HHS houses these children pursuant to grants or 

contracts and provides for their basic needs, such as food, clothing, 

shelter, education, and medical and mental health services. 

Our laws also require that they may be, quote, ‘‘promptly placed 

in the least restrictive setting that is in the best interest of the 

child,’’ end quote. This is typically with a parent or other sponsor 

who assumes the responsibility of caring for the child. 

Certainly, there are costs associated with taking in a child. Most 

are borne by sponsors themselves, but some are undoubtedly borne 

by the community. Thankfully, mayors from across the country, 
11 

from Los Angeles to Boston, from Tucson to Atlanta, came together 

to call on their communities to offer help. 

In a statement issued on October the 1st, these mayors wrote, 

‘‘As leaders of the Nation’s cities and counties, we remind the 

American public that the moral compass of our Nation resides in 

our local communities. As Americans, we will not turn our backs 

on children.’’ 

I ask unanimous consent—well, we placed that letter in the—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. Without objection, it shall be placed. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

And I conclude. The arrival of thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children along our borders is a challenging and complex 

issue, no question about it. But as many communities have demonstrated, we can rise to these challenges and respond in compassionate ways that reflect the best of our American values. 

Thank you very much, Chairman Labrador. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you, Mr. Conyers. 

Without objection, additional Members’ opening statements will 

be made a part of the record. 

We now thank our distinguished first panel for joining us today. 

If you would please rise, I will begin by swearing you in. 

Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is the 

truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? 

Let the record reflect that all witnesses responded in the affirmative. 

Thank you, and please be seated. 

First, the Honorable Lou Barletta. Congressman Barletta, who 

has represented the 11th District of Pennsylvania since 2011, currently serves on the Committee on Homeland Security. On September 8th, 2014, Mr. Barletta introduced H.R. 5409, the Unaccompanied Alien Children Transparency Act. This bill requires the 

Federal Government to inform States and localities of relocation 

plans in advance and would require the Federal Government to 

certify to the States that the minors will not pose a health or public 

safety risk to the community. 

Congressman Adrian Smith, who has represented the Third District of Nebraska since 2007, serves on the Committee on Ways and 

Means. On July 17th, 2014, Mr. Smith introduced H.R. 5129, the 

UAC State Notification Act, which would require HHS to give 

States advance notice when unaccompanied minors are to be placed 

in a State. 

Next, the Honorable Pete Olson. Congressman Olson has represented the 22nd District of Texas since 2009 and currently serves 

on the Energy and Commerce Committee. On July 17th, 2014, Mr. 

Olson introduced H.R. 5138, the Our Communities, Our Choice Act. 

This bill requires consultation with State and local officials regarding the location of the facility, as well as the duration of the award, 

and issues regarding safety, security, and funding of the facility. 

And last but not least, the Honorable Joe Crowley, our final witness in this panel, who has represented the 14th District of New 

York since 1998 and currently serves on the Committee on Ways 

and Means. Prior to being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, Mr. Crowley represented the 30th Assembly District in the 
12 

New York State legislature and ran a small business. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Queens College. 

I ask that each witness summarize his testimony in 5 minutes 

or less. To help you stay within that time, there is a timing light 

on your table. When the light switches from green to yellow, you 

will have 1 minute to conclude your testimony. When the light 

turns red, it signals that the witness’ 5 minutes have expired. 

And if we could now hear from all the witnesses, starting with 

Mr. Barletta. 

TESTIMONY OF THE LOU BARLETTA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA 

Mr. BARLETTA. Chairman Labrador, Ranking Member Lofgren, 

Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify 

today about my legislation, H.R. 5409, the Unaccompanied Alien 

Children Transparency Act. 

My bill would empower Governors and local elected officials to 

control whether or not the Federal Government can place into their 

communities unaccompanied alien minors who entered the country 

unlawfully. 

The United States Department of Health and Human Services 

sent thousands of unaccompanied alien minors to communities 

across America following this summer’s border surge, including 660 

in Pennsylvania, often without any notification or regard as to 

whether a community is prepared to receive them. 

City officials in my hometown of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, 

brought this issue to my attention after they had been contacted 

by a nonprofit group about housing unaccompanied alien minors at 

a location right across the street from my district office. That is 

how I found out: Because an organization had called the city. The 

Federal Government didn’t tell anyone about the plan—not the 

Governor, not the Department of Public Welfare, not Luzerne 

County. 

When I made the information public, residents of Hazleton expressed their concerns, and the plan was dropped. Had I not been 

informed of the situation by local officials, the plan would have proceeded without public notice. 

We learned an important lesson in that episode: that the Federal 

Government is working with organizations across the country to 

place unaccompanied alien minors in various communities without 

telling anyone in the State or locality that they are doing so. 

That is what prompted me to introduce H.R. 5409. My bill would 

require HHS to provide State and local elected officials with a 30- 

day notice-and-comment period to determine for themselves whether they are prepared and able to receive unaccompanied alien minors. 

In particular, HHS would be responsible for assessing and informing communities of the cost and impact of receiving them. The 

Department must also certify that the unaccompanied alien minors 

have undergone health screenings, including vaccinations, as well 

as undergo a criminal background check and pose no public health 

or safety threat. Such steps are vital to ensuring the welfare of our 

communities. 
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I have already been informed of several instances of unaccompanied alien minors seeking to enter schools in my district who 

have not been properly screened or vaccinated. They have absolutely no formal education and cannot speak English. These students, who are 17 years old—not 1 day of formal education whatsoever and no ability to speak English—what grade should the school 

system put them in? How can a school district be prepared when 

students like this just show up at their doorsteps? 

It is critical that State and local governments are not left in the 

dark. Lawmakers must know who is coming to their communities, 

how much it will cost, and how it will impact their health and educational system, which is why my bill gives local communities veto 

power if this information is not provided to their satisfaction. 

Now, I wish we didn’t need legislation like mine, but, unfortunately, my bill is needed due to the total lack of transparency by 

the Administration following the surge of crossings over the southern border. In fact, more than 66,000 unaccompanied alien minors 

crossed our southern border in fiscal year 2014. 

This represents a tenfold increase in crossings by unaccompanied 

alien minors since 2011. Roughly three-fourths of them are males 

ages 14 to 17. So we asked ourselves, what has changed? What has 

changed is the enforcement of our immigration laws. 

In 2011, President Obama, head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, released a series of memoranda announcing his 

agency would not be enforcing immigration laws against certain 

segments of the illegal immigration population, effectively telling 

illegal immigrants that being in the country unlawfully was not 

reason enough to deport them. 

Then, in 2012, the President announced his DACA program, 

which grants deferred action to certain illegal immigrants who 

claim to have arrived in the United States before the age of 16 and 

requires them to apply for a work permit. 

The President greatly expanded these programs in his recent announcement to grant amnesty and work authorizations to roughly 

5 million illegal immigrants. He is telling people that, so long as 

they make it into this country, they won’t be asked to leave and 

will be rewarded with a work permit, Social Security, and Medicare. 

I fear it will not be long before we see another massive surge of 

illegal immigration along our southern border. We saw it following 

the 1986 amnesty and after DACA. Now, with the President’s plan 

to expand DACA and his other so-called prosecutorial discretion 

programs, bills such as my Unaccompanied Alien Children Transparency Act are more important now than ever. 

Thank you. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you, Mr. Barletta. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Barletta follows:] 
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Mr. LABRADOR. We will now hear from Mr. Smith. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE ADRIAN SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEBRASKA 

Mr. SMITH OF NEBRASKA. Good afternoon, Chairman Labrador, 

Ranking Member Lofgren, Members of the Subcommittee. Thank 

you for the opportunity to participate in today’s hearing on immigration and the need for State notification of unaccompanied minors. 

As you are very much aware, the situation at our southern border is extreme. Every year, thousands of illegal immigrants are 

able to cross our border and settle in the United States. 

I have heard from many Nebraskans concerned by the growing 

crisis at our southern border. The problem of illegal immigration 

is nothing new, but, this year, the surge of tens of thousands of unaccompanied children, mostly from Central America, crossing into 

our country has further strained our communities’ resources. 

Families in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador are sending 

their children alone to the United States because they believe they 

will have greater opportunities here. They are also being encouraged by the belief children will be allowed to stay in the United 

States if they make it across the border, even if they are undocumented. The President’s decision to not enforce certain immigration 

laws has only made this problem worse. 

We need to address this issue not only to protect our national security and sovereignty but also to protect the very children being 

sent here. The border between the United States and Mexico is increasingly violent, as rival drug cartels fight for territory and 

smuggling routes. Unaccompanied children are especially at the 

risk of being subjected to violence, human trafficking, and sexual 

predators. 

The Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for caring for these children while they await immigration 

court hearings, places these unaccompanied minors in shelters or 

with sponsors across the country. Earlier this year, HHS estimated 

it had placed 200 children in the State of Nebraska with no prior 

notification. The State did not know where these children were, nor 

with whom they were staying. 

States have the right to know when the Federal Government is 

taking actions which impact their communities. These children obviously require resources. Some will require health care and other 

treatments. Many will seek education, including language training 

in our schools, which States are mandated to provide. All of these 

services will impact our States as well as local communities. 

Because of the effect of these placements on State and local resources, the Nebraska delegation supported our Governor, Dave 

Heineman, in his request to have this information provided to the 

State of Nebraska. HHS declined this request. 

Because of this, I introduced H.R. 5129, the UAC State Notification Act, which would require HHS to give States advance notice 

when unaccompanied minors are to be placed in a State. It is the 

companion bill to legislation introduced in the Senate by Senator 

Mike Johanns. It is also very similar to the bills my colleagues 
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have introduced and will also discuss. All of these efforts show the 

importance of this issue. 

Notifying States of unaccompanied minors is in the best interests 

of the State, the people who live there, and especially the unaccompanied child. While we must secure our border, until that happens, 

we need to look at specific problems we can address. I would think 

State notification is one area on which we can all agree. More information is in everyone’s best interest. 

I look forward to continuing to work on this issue as we continue 

to address our many immigration problems and because the 

wellbeing of children and our national security are too important 

to ignore. 

I also appreciate the Subcommittee’s efforts in having this very 

important hearing today. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you, Mr. Smith. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith of Nebraska follows:] 
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Mr. LABRADOR. We’ll now hear from Mr. Olson. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE PETE OLSON, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

Mr. OLSON. Chairman Labrador, Ranking Member Lofgren, 

Ranking Member of the Full Committee Mr. Conyers, thank you 

for holding this hearing to discuss my bill, H.R. 5138, the Our 

Communities, Our Choice Act. 

My bill addresses a problem many communities in America got 

a taste of this past summer: record numbers of kids coming across 

our southern border without their parents. Our Border Patrol captured 37,000 of these children in 2013. That number doubled this 

year. It may double again in 2015. 

Under current law, HHS sends these kids to live and go to school 

until the legal system decides what to do with them. Since local 

leaders are rarely consulted, the kids show up and our local leaders 

struggle to get the kids in school, find teachers that can speak the 

needed foreign languages, find new housing to live in, find new doctors. The local communities bear most of the financial burden, and 

many don’t have the cash on hand to comply with an unfunded 

mandate coming from Washington, D.C. 

In Texas, if we have done something difficult in the past and are 

asked to do it again, we say, ‘‘This ain’t our first rodeo.’’ And this 

is not southeast Texas’ first rodeo with kids swarming our region. 

Over 250,000 of our neighbors from New Orleans evacuated to our 

region when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. They needed homes, 

food, schools, health care, and they need it overnight. 

We accepted the challenge and took in all of our neighbors, but 

it was at a great cost to towns like Alvin, Manvel, Meadows Place, 

Missouri City, Fulshear, Rosenberg, and Stafford. My friend Leonard Scarcella from Stafford is on the second panel, and he will give 

you a description of what Stafford went through with Hurricane 

Katrina. 

These kids crossing our southern borders have gone through hell. 

My bill makes sure they don’t go through hell again by putting 

them in a place where their needs will never, ever be met. 

My bill simply tells HHS to hit the pause button before they intend to bring these kids into a local community. Tell the county officials, the mayors, the school boards, and the hospitals where 

these kids will be detained what are their issues, how many boys, 

how many girls, what grade levels, what health issues, what languages are spoken. Tell them before it is imposed upon them. Give 

them 90 days to respond with what they can do and what they 

can’t do. 

We can’t stop HHS from going forward, but we can make sure 

they know exactly what they are doing so they don’t put these kids 

through hell again. 

I look forward to working with the entire Committee next year 

to make this bill a reality. 

Thank you. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you, Mr. Olson. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Olson follows:] 
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Mr. LABRADOR. Now we will hear from the honorable gentleman 

from New York, Mr. Crowley. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE JOSEPH CROWLEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW 

YORK 

Mr. CROWLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon to you 

and to my good friend Ms. Lofgren, as well as Mr. Conyers and to 

Mr. Garcia from Florida. And thank you for being here today and 

hearing my testimony. 

As mentioned, I am Congressman Joe Crowley. I represent the 

14th Congressional District in New York, which takes in parts of 

Queens and the Bronx. My district has been called the most ethnically diverse congressional district in our Nation. I like to call it 

the new Ellis Island of America. And for generations, it has been 

home to new immigrants. 

New York City has always been proud to welcome immigrants, 

whether through Ellis Island, JFK Airport, or the Port Authority 

Bus Terminal. We welcome immigrants who are coming here to 

make a better life for themselves and for their children, but we also 

welcome those who are fleeing danger and violence, like these children from Central America. 

Despite what you might hear from critics about why these children came here, they endured unimaginable struggle and danger to 

come here for the chance at not just a better life but a chance at 

life at all. It is a life-or-death situation for these children, with 

murderers and gang violence running rampant in their home countries. 

The United States has long stood with those who are fleeing persecution and violence. We have stood alongside them so they were 

not alone. We have stood behind them to give them the ability to 

make a new life here. And we have stood up for them to make it 

clear that there is no place in this world for the atrocities that 

drive people to leave their homelands. 

That is who we are, and that is what we do. And it is what we 

need to continue to do, not just with words but with resources. I 

was disappointed this summer when we didn’t see that same commitment from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and an 

important opportunity was missed to help meet the needs of these 

children. 

Fortunately, communities like my hometown of New York City 

have been stepping up to welcome these children. New York City, 

as a region, has been receiving some of the largest numbers of child 

migrants, with over 2,000 child migrants placed with family members or other sponsors in my city alone and another 3,000 in the 

surrounding counties. 

I know there are a number of bills introduced that focus on notifying local officials when the Federal Government looks to house or 

place children in any particular area. Let me first say that I certainly don’t think any of us would argue against greater communication between the Federal Government and local authorities. 

But it has to give enough flexibility to actually meet the needs of 

the situation, and it has to ensure that there are adequate confidentiality protections involved. 
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Notification and information-sharing cannot become a way to target innocent children or the family members that are taking them 

in. And it can’t be used as a way to block needed response efforts, 

leaving children out in the cold to score cheap political points. 

After the immediate need of housing these children during initial 

screenings, their needs don’t end when they leave the Federal Government’s custody to stay with their sponsors. New York City has 

taken on several important initiatives to help these children 

through the next stages. 

They have helped ensure legal representation for these children, 

with nearly $2 million over the next year in funding for legal services, provided by a combination of city and private funders. This is 

critical, as history has shown that over half of these children may 

be eligible to remain in the United States, such as by being granted 

asylum or visas for victims of trafficking. 

Beyond just the courthouse, New York City formed an interagency task force and published a comprehensive guide to legal, 

medical, mental health, and social services that they distributed in 

English and other languages. 

A major action has been to place representatives of the city’s 

education and health agencies at the immigration courts themselves so that while the children’s cases work their way through 

the legal system they can enroll in school or Head Start programs 

and get health care—programs they have a legal right to under 

State and city law and under legal decisions made over many 

years. 

We must recognize that our communities are best served when 

the children living here are in school and that they are healthy. It 

does us no good to drive them further into the shadows and deny 

them the access to these services. 

Our social service providers in our communities have also played 

a critical role in connecting children to needed services. They provide legal help, support the family reunification, and other direct 

services. They have frequent events that pair legal screening clinics 

with resources from city agencies and other social services and 

community groups, and they will continue to do so. These groups 

are on the front line in the neighborhoods where these children 

live, and I thank them for all their continued efforts. 

It might be easy for some to pretend that the urgency of this 

issue has somehow diminished as the number of children arriving 

in recent months has decreased, but there is more that has to be 

done. Just like we can’t solve immigration reform by simply militarizing our border and pretending that solves the problem, we can’t 

help these children by simply shutting them out and avoiding their 

needs. Yes, it may be challenging and it may not be easy, but it 

is a challenge that is best served by addressing it head-on, like my 

hometown of New York City has done. Let’s not shy away from the 

challenges. Let’s rise to them. 

And I thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you, Mr. Crowley. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Crowley follows:] 
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Mr. LABRADOR. And thank you, all of you, for your statements. 

As is customary, we will not ask the Member panel to stay for 

questions. You are dismissed. Thank you very much for being here 

today. 

And we will now take a moment to let the second panel of witnesses take their place and prepare for their testimony. 

We thank our second panel for joining us today. 

If you would please rise, I will begin by swearing you in. 

Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is the 

truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? 

Let the record reflect that all witnesses responded in the affirmative. 

Thank you, and please be seated. 

We are honored to have all of you here today, and I will introduce now each one of you. 

I will start with Mayor Leonard Scarcella. Leonard Scarcella currently serves as mayor of the city of Stafford, Texas, and is the 

longest continuously serving mayor in the United States. Mayor 

Scarcella graduated from Texas A&M University in 1962, attended 

the University of Houston Law School, and was admitted to the 

State Bar of Texas in 1967. 

Next, we have Ms. Jessica Vaughan. Ms. Vaughan currently 

serves as the director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies. She has been with the Center since 1992, where her 

expertise is in immigration policy and operations topics such as 

visa programs, immigration benefits, and immigration law enforcement. Ms. Vaughan has a master’s degree from Georgetown University and earned her bachelor’s degree in international studies at 

Washington College in Maryland. 

Next, we have Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson. Sheriff serves as the 

sheriff of Bristol County, Massachusetts. Upon assuming the role, 

Sheriff Hodgson has focused on corrections reform, public safety, 

and raising the standards for the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office to 

enhance the primary mission of care and custody of inmates. Prior 

to being appointed sheriff, he was a former Maryland police lieutenant for specialty operations, joined the staff of the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office, and served as deputy superintendent of investigations. He also served 5 years as a counselor-at-large on the 

New Bedford City Council. 

And, finally, we have Ms. Kristyn Peck. Ms. Peck is the associate 

director of children’s services with the United States Conference of 

Catholic Bishops, where she implements their programming and 

protection efforts for vulnerable migrating children. In this capacity, Ms. Peck and the children’s services team oversee a national 

network of more than 200,000 dioceses and other community-based 

social service agencies providing family reunification and specialized foster care services to unaccompanied refugee and immigrant 

children. Ms. Peck has a master’s in social work and a bachelor’s 

in journalism from the University of Maryland. 

As the second panel prepares for their testimony, I again ask 

that each witness summarize his testimony in 5 minutes or less. 

To help you stay within that time, there is a timing light on your 

table. When the light switches from green to yellow, you will have 
34 

1 minute to conclude your testimony. When the light turns red, it 

signals that the witness’ 5 minutes have expired. 

And, Mr. Scarcella, we will start with your testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF LEONARD SCARCELLA, 

MAYOR OF STAFFORD, TEXAS 

Mr. SCARCELLA. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, Committee 

members. 

Mr. LABRADOR. If you could turn your microphone on, that would 

be great. 

Mr. SCARCELLA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Committee members. 

It is indeed a privilege to be here today to address you in regard 

to what we consider to be a most important issue, this hearing 

being on the impact of local communities of the release of unaccompanied alien minors and the need for consultation and notification. 

I am the mayor of the city of Stafford, Texas, which has common 

boundaries with the city of Houston and the city of Sugarland and 

is one of the fastest-growing areas in the Nation and is some 

roughly 365 miles from the Mexican-American border. 

This legislation, as I understand it, is intended to specifically address the impact on local communities, and we are very interested 

and concerned about that. The bills which are before and being discussed here I want to stress that I strongly endorse, mainly for the 

reasons of making sure that we have a place at the table and that 

we are able to participate in how these children, unaccompanied 

alien children, are dealt with. 

Let me just simply say, fortunately, we have not had any of those 

children come to Stafford, but we do have a point of reference in 

a somewhat analogous situation, which Congressman Olson alluded 

to earlier. When Hurricane Katrina literally blasted the Louisiana 

coast, within hours we had hundreds of people coming into Stafford. Many of those were children. We immediately began to assist 

them in terms of housing, care, and education, and we are very 

proud of the record that we established at that time. 

What we would like to emphasize is that we have some—in a 

school system that had less than 3,000 children, we had 179 of 

those children enrolled in the Stafford Municipal School District, 

which is the only municipal school district in the State of Texas. 

And that was at the beginning of the 2005-2006 school year. As it 

turned out, we educated those children through that process and 

literally had to do quite a bit of alteration in our school to accommodate them and to elevate them to the level of our students that 

we had in SMSD. 

There are a couple of things that stick out in my mind even 9 

years later. One of those is the fact that, obviously, all of those children had some parental support in Stafford with them. The other 

thing was that they all spoke English. 

Obviously, the situation with these unaccompanied alien children 

is that most of them, if any, don’t have any parental support, and 

the other concern is that none of them speak English. And, consequently, even though we have tried very diligently in our small 

school system to have a strong bilingual or language program—and 

we have some 37 different languages in our schools—still, it is very 

difficult to get the teachers necessary to address this. 
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What I want to emphasize is that, of these children that came, 

of the 179 that came, at the end of that school year 76 were still 

there and had benefited from it. 

The point, too, that I would like to make and that I think is so 

important is that we recognize the humanitarian obligations and 

the obligations to be compassionate with these youngsters. We also 

recognize the concerns of the citizens. And it must be emphasized 

that not only are you talking about housing these children and 

the—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. If you could summarize your testimony in 10 seconds or less. We have run out of time. 

Mr. SCARCELLA. I would just—thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would 

just simply say, in conclusion, that we recognize that there are significant costs for food, clothing, education, and we would like to be 

in the discussion to determine how that could best be utilized and 

effected. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Scarcella follows:] 
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Mr. LABRADOR. Ms. Vaughan? 

TESTIMONY OF JESSICA M. VAUGHAN, DIRECTOR OF POLICY 

STUDIES, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES 

Ms. VAUGHAN. Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to testify today. 

The Obama administration’s decision to allow virtually all of 

these so-called unaccompanied minors from Central America to live 

here indefinitely, and their family members too in most cases, has 

imposed a significant fiscal and logistical burden on many American communities. 

We are all sympathetic to the hardships and challenges that 

many of these young people have had to endure, but the Federal 

Government also needs to consider the impact of its policies on the 

localities where they are resettling. Communities that have had to 

absorb even relatively small numbers of UACs have incurred significant new and unforeseen expenses for schooling, health care, 

and other support. The bills we are discussing today would give 

State and local governments a voice in one important part of the 

resettlement decisionmaking process. 

And we have heard the numbers. And the vast majority of these 

aliens are here because their parents, who are usually also here illegally, paid a criminal smuggling organization to transport them. 

And because the parents understand that, once they make it here, 

the government will allow the kids to stay, enroll them in school, 

provide health care and other social services and that the parents 

will be allowed to stay, too, as a sponsor, that provides a tremendous incentive for them to do this. 

This is not a false rumor, as the Administration has claimed. According to ICE, 98 percent of the unaccompanied minors have been 

released to family members in the United States. Despite claims 

that the Administration is trying to send them home, last year ICE 

deported only 1,901 UACs and, at the same time, booked 56,000 

onto its docket over the course of the same year. 

Most of these 1,900 deportations of minors actually were cases 

from prior years. That is because these cases have been deliberately funneled into our dysfunctional immigration court system, 

where it can take up to 5 years to resolve them. So this is not a 

temporary issue for the communities that have to absorb these arrivals; communities are going to be dealing with these costs for 

years. 

Education is the most significant cost, and the problem is not 

just the numbers but the fact that so many of the new arrivals 

have had only a few years of schooling in their home country. Some 

have never even held a pencil before, I am told. Everyone agrees 

that the students need support to succeed, and no one begrudges 

them that, but the problem is how to pay for it. 

Yesterday, I met with a State lawmaker who represents the town 

of Milford, Massachusetts, which has received—they enrolled about 

30 of these new arrivals in the public high school in September. 

The town finance committee just completed its calculations. The 

cost of educating the new arrivals will be about half-a-million dollars for this year alone. That is a lot of money for a small town 
41 

of 28,000 people that has a lower-than-average per capita income 

in the State. And there is no offsetting tax revenue. 

Another city near me, Lynn, Massachusetts, received 250 new 

high school students for this year because of this influx of unaccompanied minors. They had to increase their education budget 9 

percent, which is $8 million. As a result, the city had to cut other 

vital programs and services that affect the quality of life in that 

town for everybody. Community policing was ended, a firetruck 

order had to be cancelled, and there were other belt-tightening 

measures. 

Louisiana’s Jefferson Parish got 533 UACs and had to hire almost 70 new teachers. The total cost: $4.6 million. 

The estimate of the average national cost is about $11,000 per 

child—more in some areas, less in others. So I estimate that is 

about $600 million per year for just 1 year’s arrivals. And so the 

$14 million that has been talked about in the budget is just a drop 

in the bucket for that cost. 

Of course, there are healthcare expenses, as well. Typically, that 

has to be funded by the public, as well. 

And local officials have also raised a lot of concerns about fraud 

in the program because of the apparent lack of diligent screening 

on the part of ORR and DHS agencies. There have been cases of 

clearly ineligible adults claiming to be unaccompanied minors and 

individuals with arrest warrants and other problems, with no apparent response or concern on the part of ICE or other Federal 

agencies involved. If the screening by Federal officials who process 

these cases cannot detect those falsely claiming to be minors, it is 

unlikely that they are also going to find the criminals or other 

threats to public safety either. 

Local communities are going to have to be alert to the emergence 

of gang activity, as has happened in a prior wave of illegal immigration from Central America, with ICE now having deprioritized 

gang disruption and unlikely to be much help in that. 

Enactment of these bills would certainly help, but the most effective way to alleviate the strain on communities caused by the influx of UACs is for Congress to clarify that only those trafficking 

victims and truly unaccompanied juveniles—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. If you could summarize your testimony in 10 seconds or less. 

Ms. VAUGHAN. Thank you. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you very much, Ms. Vaughan. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Vaughan follows:] 
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Mr. LABRADOR. Sheriff? 

TESTIMONY OF THOMAS M. HODGSON, 

SHERIFF OF BRISTOL COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS 

Sheriff HODGSON. Chairman Labrador, Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you this 

afternoon. 

When President Obama signed the Deferred Action for Childhood 

Arrivals in January 2012, we experienced a dramatic surge of unaccompanied minors entering the United States illegally. This unprecedented influx of illegals quickly began overtaxing our resources and our infrastructure. 

In Massachusetts, we have received 1,400 unaccompanied minors 

and 90 in Bristol County alone since January from January to August of 2014. 

One of the immediate effects was the compromising of our public 

safety and national security. Individuals with gang affiliations, including association with transnational gangs, began weaving themselves into the fabric of our communities. It was reported recently 

that one of these minors admitted committing his first murder at 

the age of 8. 

Safe houses have been established in border communities and 

are used to hold illegals who want to enter other States undetected. 

These minors are being held in those houses and are being sexually 

and physically abused and exposed to illegal drugs. Eventually they 

are smuggled into our communities, in need of social services and 

counseling and other public assistance. 

Our border security has been severely compromised, as the officers have been redirected from enforcement and surveillance efforts 

to processing and babysitting duties for illegal minors. Consequently, drug cartels have accelerated their efforts to increase 

drug and human trafficking into the United States, and that is felt 

in communities throughout the country. The incidence of sexual 

abuse, murder, and other crimes, reported or not, have been attributed, in part, to illegal aliens. 

Thousands of these unaccompanied minors are being placed in 

foster care in municipalities throughout the country with little or 

no notification to local officials or the community at large. The cost 

to taxpayers is staggering. For example, the total tax dollars paid 

to Baptist Children and Family Services for care of 2,400 minors 

over a period of 120 days was $183 million. 

Additionally, many minors are placed with distant relatives or 

friends, legal or not, who are supposed to guarantee the individual 

appears for their immigration hearing. We know that 70 percent do 

not report for the hearing. They are difficult to locate, given the resources that are needed and aren’t available. 

With regards to public health, we recognize that the majority of 

illegals arrive from countries that have lower standards of health 

care, which contributes to inordinate numbers of cases of chicken 

pox, tuberculosis, scabies, respiratory diseases, and other communicable diseases. Processing centers, such as Chula Vista, California, and Artesia, New Mexico, were quarantined because of the 

amount of communicable diseases found in those facilities. 
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The cost for medical care for illegals is astronomical and exacerbated by the fact that even processing centers must use expensive 

emergency room treatment. 

The impacts extend beyond absorbing minors, as the border 

surge has a ripple effect. For example, hundreds of ICE detainees 

in Texas were diverted to Massachusetts to make way for the influx in south Texas for the surge of immigrants coming in. 

Besides the travel costs impacting ICE’s local capacity to detain 

illegal aliens arrested in this region, one of the transferred ICE detainees was hospitalized, who came to us in our area, and taxpayers incurred millions of dollars of medical expenses for his 

treatment. He was subsequently returned to Texas at taxpayers’ 

expense and, after all the trouble, was released. This incident illustrates how the border surge disrupted ICE operations nationwide 

and imposed unnecessary expenses on taxpayers. 

Keep in mind that there are thousands of unaccompanied minors 

who are entering our country undetected and unprocessed for contagious diseases, creating even greater risk, living in our neighborhoods and enrolling in our schools. 

I am sure you understand from my testimony today that allowing 

people to enter our country illegally and then granting them amnesty creates an unfair hardship on the American people and those 

who are legal residents. Innocent people are losing their lives, and 

others are being exposed to communicable diseases. 

American tax dollars, to the tune of $40 billion a year, are spent 

to provide services for people who violated our laws by entering 

and living in our country. Given our deteriorating infrastructure, 

joblessness, homelessness, need for improving our education system, loss of benefits for our elderly and war veterans, we need to 

make certain that our tax dollars are reinvested for the purposes 

they were intended. 

In the interests of public safety, public health, expenditure of 

taxpayers’ money, I believe it would be useful to have legislation 

that allows communities to have input before Federal authorities 

place unaccompanied minors in our communities. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Sheriff Hodgson follows:] 
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Mr. LABRADOR. Ms. Peck? 

TESTIMONY OF KRISTYN PECK, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF 

CHILDREN’S SERVICES, U.S. CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC 

BISHOPS 

Ms. PECK. Good afternoon. I am Kristyn Peck, director of children’s services for Migration and Refugee Services of the United 

States Conference of Catholic Bishops. I would like to thank Chairman Bob Goodlatte and Ranking Member John Conyers for holding 

this hearing today. I would also like to thank Representative Rau ́l 

Labrador and Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren for their leadership. 

I testify today on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Catholic 

Bishops in support of unaccompanied migrating children, many of 

whom are fleeing violence in Central America. These children 

should be provided the opportunity to submit their protection 

claims in a safe environment that ensures their best interest in accordance with U.S. and international laws. 

As you know, Mr. Chairman, USCCB testified before this Committee in June and laid out our policy recommendations for protecting these children. With your permission, I would like to resubmit our testimony from that hearing for today’s record. 

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Ms. PECK. Mr. Chairman, let me say up front that the U.S. 

Bishops acknowledge the right of our Nation to control its borders 

and the right of States and local communities to know who is being 

placed in their jurisdictions and for what purpose. As I will outline, 

however, we have grave concerns that the bills under consideration 

would undermine our Nation’s ability to protect vulnerable children. 

Mr. Chairman, I would first like to address one premise of this 

hearing and of the bills under consideration, namely that these 

children may be a threat or a burden to our Nation. 

As we have testified previously, the majority of these children 

are fleeing violence from organized criminal networks in Central 

America. We believe that this is a refugee flow and that the majority of these children would qualify for refugee protection under U.S. 

law and international law. Therefore, we would oppose efforts to 

undermine what is our obligation to these children under the law. 

We do not believe these children pose a threat to our communities. And, in fact, they are much more likely to be victimized because of their vulnerabilities. 

Further, child shelters positively impact communities by providing opportunities for local employment and encouraging local 

partnerships. We find that when communities learn more about unaccompanied children and have the opportunity to interact with 

them they are richer because of it. 

Second, these bills imply that the American public overall is not 

welcoming of these children. Our experience has been much different. I was heart-warmed by the outpouring of support my office 

received this summer. Myself, I received hundreds of calls a day 

from individuals offering assistance to these children and offering 

to foster these children. And the main question that we received 

was not why were they here but how can I help. 

Third, while we understand State and local communities’ need 

for information and transparency about facilities for unaccompanied children, mechanisms for this information-sharing already 

exist. 

Rather than improve collaboration, these bills would require public hearings to be held as long as 90 days after notification, delaying our government’s ability to promptly place children in shelters. 

This is unnecessary. As you know, States and local jurisdictions 

have the authority to hold hearings on these matters without them 

being required after a lengthy delay imposed by the Federal Government. 

In the meantime, children would be left in the custody of Customs and Border Protection and housed in restrictive and substandard conditions for far longer than the 72-hour limit, in violation of current law, the Flores v. Reno settlement, and the best interests of the child. I might add, it would take Customs and Border 

Protection away from its main mission of protecting our borders. 

Finally, many of these bills will give States or local jurisdictions 

the option to deny placement of these children. This, again, would 

backlog the system, leaving children in inappropriate settings and 

burdening Customs and Border Protection. 

Mr. Chairman, our specific concerns with these bills can be found 

in our written statement. Instead of adopting these bills, which 
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would create inefficiencies in the system and undermine our ability 

to protect children, we recommend the following steps. 

First, Congress should resource the immigration court system by 

providing more immigration judges and attorneys. This would ensure that children receive due process in a much shorter timeframe 

without undermining their rights. 

Second, post-release services for children should be expanded to 

assist families with navigating the complex educational, social 

service, and legal systems. Currently, only 10 percent of children 

placed with their families receive post-release services. 

Finally, the best-interest-of-the-child principle should be incorporated in all procedures impacting children’s lives. Adhering to 

this principle would ensure that all policies and procedures are 

child-friendly, that children and families are able to provide meaningful feedback on decisions affecting their lives, and that recommendations to ensure the safety, permanency, and wellbeing of 

these children are integrated into decisionmaking. 

Mr. Chairman, how we respond to these vulnerable children 

among us is a test of our moral character. America and the American people are generous and welcoming, especially as they learn 

more about the horrific stories of these children and witness their 

resiliency, their hope, and their abundant gratitude. 

We look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, and the 

Committee on improving the system so that both the best interests 

of the child and the best interests of our Nation are served. 

Thank you. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you, Ms. Peck. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Peck follows:] 
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Mr. LABRADOR. And thank you all. 

We will now proceed under the 5-minute rule with questions. I 

will begin by recognizing myself. 

I am going to start with you, Ms. Peck. You just said that how 

we respond to these children is a test of our moral character. How 

many children in the world would benefit from being in the United 

States? 

Ms. PECK. I think for children who have a refugee claim and who 

meet our—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. How many are there? Don’t you think—first of 

all, most of these children do not have a refugee claim. But, second 

of all, do we with the ability to take care of every single child that 

is in the world right now that would benefit from being in the 

United States? 

Ms. PECK. I would like to refer you to the United Nations High 

Commissioner for Refugees’ ‘‘Children on the Run’’ report—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. Would you please answer my question? 

Ms. PECK [continuing]. Which found that 58 percent of the—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. No, that is not—— 

Ms. PECK [continuing]. Children interviewed—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. Would you answer my question? 

Ms. PECK [continuing]. Met international protection. You 

asked—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. So how—— 

Ms. PECK. My answer is 58 percent of the children arriving 

would be eligible for a refugee claim, and that is how many we—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. So we need to—so we would have 58 percent of 

the children in the world, we want them to come to the United 

States? 

Ms. PECK. I think that children who are eligible for protection 

under our laws—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. Don’t you think the President’s actions are actually encouraging children to come to the United States and that it 

is actually less safe for them to be traveling through these dangerous places to come to the United States? 

Ms. PECK. I have heard the argument that the President’s actions are—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. Okay, so you have heard the argument. Let me 

just read to you what—— 

Ms. PECK. That is not what I have heard from the families and 

children that we have served. We have been providing services to 

this population for more than 20 years. 

Mr. LABRADOR. But what they are telling the USCIS agents that 

are encountering them is that it is exactly the President’s actions 

that are encouraging them to come to the United States. 

In fact, I would like to submit for the record, I have an article 

from the Prensa Libre in Guatemala—it is in Spanish—and it was 

only 2 weeks after the President’s actions here on November 20. 

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Mr. LABRADOR. And this article indicates that there is now an increase of people coming from Guatemala because of the President’s 

actions, because they believe that coming to the United States will 

entitle them to stay in the United States, number one, and, number two, they understand that the cartels are now going to be using 

this information to bring children to the United States. 

And it is just a fact. I know you don’t believe it, and I know the 

persons to my left don’t believe, but it is a fact that people are coming to the United States because of the President’s actions, making 

their lives less safe. And what you are trying to do right now is 

tell us that it is not happening. In fact, you say that it is not making these communities less safe. 

Sheriff, can you tell us how you believe that some of these children are making these communities less safe? 

Sheriff HODGSON. Well, first of all, we are seeing a rise in 

transnational gang activity in our communities throughout the 

country. 

Mr. LABRADOR. I think it is a fiction, according to Ms. Peck. 

Sheriff HODGSON. Well, it is not. So, look, we have our boots on 

the ground. We are out there on the street. We know what is going 

on. We are seeing—there is a rise in sexual abuse going on, with 

the illegal immigrant population coming in. We are seeing the victimization of these illegals, which is raising crime in our communities, Mr. Chairman. It is—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. So, in fact, it is these same children that are actually being victimized. 

Sheriff HODGSON. Well, let me—yeah. And let me point out something, Mr. Chairman, that you brought up, which is very important. 

This thousand-mile trek that they are on, the cartels have turned 

this into a human trafficking business, multimillion-dollar human 

trafficking business. In addition to that, mothers are giving their 

children, their teenage daughters, birth control pills before they 

make this thousand-mile trek because they know their daughters 

are probably going to get raped at least once. 

I don’t believe and I don’t think anybody on this Committee, I 

hope, doesn’t believe that that is humane. It is not a way to encourage people to come to this country, and certainly not illegally. And 

to have them exposed to that, with no support when they get here 

for the trauma and the difficulties they have gone through along 

the way, is absolutely a disaster with regards to crime. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Ms. Vaughan, what do you have to say about 

this? 

Ms. VAUGHAN. Well, that is consistent with what I have been 

hearing from local officials and from law enforcement officers. 

And, you know, certainly, what we know from the intelligence reports that have been released from the DHS agencies and from numerous media reports from reporters who interviewed these kids, 

what they say is that they are coming because they know that they 

will be allowed to stay, that they are going to get a permiso or, you 

know, that they have been sent for by their parents. That is what 

they say. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Sheriff, how would it help you to be notified of 

the people that are coming to your community? 
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Sheriff HODGSON. Well, first of all, we need to know who is coming in. Some of these—we refer to them as minors, but the fact of 

the matter is a number of these individuals have had associations 

with gangs like MS-13 and other gangs that are notable in our 

country that are creating serious crime problems in our community. 

So for us in the community to know, for anyone coming in, not 

only for domestic security but for our national security—that is 

why Secure Communities was put in place, so that we could know 

quickly who is here and why are they here. We need to know what 

their backgrounds are. Because, otherwise, we can’t carry out the 

fundamental responsibility that government has and we have in 

law enforcement, which is to protect the safety of the people of our 

community. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you. My time has run out. 

And I would submit to you, Ms. Peck, that it would be more humane and it would be a test of our moral character if we actually 

stopped encouraging people to come to the United States and enduring all of these actions that are happening to many of these 

children. 

And now I will turn time over to Ms. Lofgren. I recognize Ms. 

Lofgren, the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And it has been interesting to listen to this. 

Mr. Mayor, I read your testimony very carefully. Before I was in 

Congress, I was in local government for 14 years, the board of supervisors, not city council, but I know it is important and not easy 

to be in local government. 

I did want to make this observation. You mentioned the infamous 3 a.m. Phone call, but here is the deal. Under the law, for 

DHS to place a child in a program, that program has to be licensed. 

And I don’t know about Texas, but in California, if you are going 

to have a licensed facility—you know, when we were on the board, 

we would get notice and there was this whole process to make sure 

that they meet the criteria. 

So nobody is just going to get dumped in the middle of the night 

in a warehouse without violating the law. I mean, that is just not 

what is done. I just wanted to reassure you on that point. 

Going back to you, Ms. Peck, you know, in Ms. Vaughan’s testimony, her written testimony, she argues that the vast majority of 

these children couldn’t possibly be trafficking victims because they 

have family members in the United States and mentioned that 

Border Patrol, you know, inquires. And, in fact, many of these children do have relatives, including a parent, in the United States. 

How can you reconcile the trafficking suggestion you made in 

your testimony with the fact that some of these children might also 

have a family member here? 

Ms. PECK. Thank you. 

Many children may be joining family members, but that doesn’t 

mean that they aren’t also victims of crime or have been victims 

of trafficking or en route to trafficking situations. And we don’t 

know that until we have given them the opportunity to be released 

to their caregivers or to a safe space where they can establish trust 

with an attorney and articulate their claims. 
89 

What is undoubted is that these children are victims of crime, as 

we have established. I went to Central America with the Bishops 

in November of 2013, and we interviewed children and families in 

Central America, in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. And 

I interviewed children who were victims of trafficking, myself, and 

who were en route to the U.S. to reunify with family because they 

were escaping trafficking situations in Central America. 

Ms. LOFGREN. So when you went down to Central America, did 

you find the situation—I mean, one of the things that is interesting 

is that the rise in the number of unaccompanied children coming 

to the United States, it is not just the U.S. I mean, there has been 

a tremendous increase just from these three countries—Honduras, 

Guatemala, El Salvador—to the U.S., but also they are not coming 

from other countries, and there has been, like, a 700—more than 

700 percent increase in children escaping to other countries in— 

well, in Central America as well as to Mexico. 

Does that comport with the information you saw and that the 

Catholic Bishops investigated when you went down to Central 

America? What is the violence situation that you investigated? 

Ms. PECK. That is right. 

And let me add that the U.S. Bishops have been providing service to these children for more than 20 years, and we saw the narrative shift before DACA was passed. We saw the narrative shift 

in around 2009. 

And we actually did a report of children that we served between 

October 1st of 2007 through June 1st of 2011, and what we found 

was that between 2009 and 2010 the number of children reporting 

fleeing violence in their home country nearly doubled. In fact, the 

increase in violence and the coinciding increase in children prompted our trip to Central America. 

And what we had found is, although the reasons for migration 

in each of those three countries differed slightly, that the prevailing narrative is that there has been an increase in generalized 

violence by gangs. Although gangs have always existed in these 

countries, they have now become more organized. They are now 

working with transnational criminal organizations, which are targeting children because of their vulnerability. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I would just like to note that, although, you know, 

sometimes people say these kids will never show up, the actual 

data from the Department indicates that, from 2005 through June 

of this year, just looking at the records of nondetained unaccompanied minors, 78.6 percent of the children who were not detained 

actually showed up for their hearing. And if they were represented 

by counsel, that number went to 92.5 percent. So these kids are 

showing up for their hearing. 

And I know my time is up, but I would like to ask unanimous 

consent, Mr. Chairman, to place into the record documents from 

the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants; the Church 

World Service; Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service; Annunciation House; Women’s Refugee Commission and Kids in Need of 

Defense; the National Immigrant Justice Center; and the chart 

from the Department of Homeland Security about the numbers of 

children and the countries they are fleeing from. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Without objection. 
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Ms. LOFGREN. I yield back. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Now I will recognize the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Conyers. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Chairman Labrador. 

I am interested to hear from the associate director of the bishops’ 

services a little bit more about some of the misunderstanding that 

I—I hear different statements, assertions of fact from different witnesses, and maybe we can get a little more clarification on that. 

What about the causes of the current migration? You have talked 

to lots of those people coming in, young people and others. But how 

did we get into the situation that brings us all here today? I would 

like to hear your ideas on that, please. 

Ms. PECK. Thank you. 

As I mentioned, we have been providing family reunification and 

foster care services to these children for 20 years. And we began 

to see that children were reporting increasingly violent trauma histories over the past 5 years or so. 

And what children are reporting is that at very early ages they 

are being targeted and recruited by gangs. They are being recruited 

on the buses as they are on their way to school. This is quite 

graphic, but when young girls are approached by gang members to 

be their girlfriends, they are gang-raped. And if they don’t consent 

to the rape, there have been noted stories of gang members putting 

dismembered body parts of girls on the buses so the girls know 

what will happen if they don’t comply. 

When we were at a return center for deported migrants in San 

Salvador in November of 2013, I was speaking with the mother of 

a 16-year-old girl. The 16-year-old girl had been repeatedly harassed by a neighborhood gang. And this mother was so ashamed 

that she had let her child migrate to the United States. She understands the dangers very well. And what she said to me is, ‘‘I know 

it is not the best solution, but what else can we do?’’ She said, ‘‘We 

have no place to go.’’ 

She told me that she tried to work from home and cut hair so 

that she could supervise her daughter during the afternoons. 

School in El Salvador lets out at 12 noon, so children are unsupervised in the afternoon. She said the gangs demanded that she pay 

rent money, and she wasn’t able to make the payments. And she 

saw what happened when you don’t pay the rent to the gang members. You get killed. 

And so she closed her business and began working in a nearby 

town, and that left her child vulnerable to harassment by the 

gangs. And so she said to me, ‘‘It is an intolerable situation. I know 

the journey is dangerous, but it is dangerous here.’’ 

Mr. CONYERS. Goodnight. 

Now, about whether these children enroll in the public schools as 

soon as they get here, is there some modification of that assertion 

so that they don’t end up in public schools right away? 

Ms. PECK. Yeah. Let me clarify that. 

Children who are placed in the Federal custody of the Department of Health and Human Services in their network of shelters 

are not enrolled in public schools. Health and Human Services provides, through its cooperative agreements through agencies such as 
111 

the one I work for, funding for education to be provided on site at 

the agency. 

Mr. CONYERS. What about the costs of the food, clothing, and 

shelter? Isn’t that shared? Isn’t there some government responsibility there? 

Ms. PECK. Likewise, that is also paid for under the grants that 

Health and Human Services has with its subcontractors, such as 

the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. And they provide subcontracts through the agencies to provide food, shelter, clothing, 

education, and case management services. 

Mr. CONYERS. Now, what advice, finally, would you leave with 

this Committee, this Subcommittee, which has a great concern 

about these young people, the dangers that they are in if they stay. 

They are in danger if they leave; it is a very risky flight. 

Are there some things that we might focus on more particularly 

that will give them aid and comfort? 

Ms. PECK. First, let me say I have been working on behalf of 

these children for 10 years, and I am inspired each time I talk with 

these children by their resilience and by their hope and their faith 

and their gratitude despite what they have been through. 

And I learn so much more from these children than they learn 

from me. And I find that when I speak to the communities that we 

work with and our partners that they find the same. And when 

they have the opportunity to serve these children, they, too, are inspired and touched by the resilience and the hope of these children. 

And so what I would encourage us to do is ensure that any decisions that are made don’t repeal the protections we have put in 

place for unaccompanied children, that we allow them to have a 

safe space while they are able to articulate their protection claims, 

and that that space is in the least restrictive setting, such as a 

shelter or foster care placement through Health and Human Services, and that we do invest in providing more resources to the immigration process so that these cases—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. Your time has—— 

Ms. PECK [continuing]. Do go through the court system more 

quickly. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Your time has expired. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you very much, Chairman Labrador. 

And—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you. 

Mr. CONYERS [continuing]. The witness is very inspiring yourself. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you very much. 

Just a quick follow-up to that question. Why don’t they apply for 

refugee status at home? If 58 percent of them are eligible for refugee status, they—if they all qualify, they would all be able to 

come, and they wouldn’t have to go through that harrowing trip to 

the United States. 

Ms. PECK. Representative Labrador, I would agree with you, and 

I think that would be great if there were in-country refugee processing. And I know that there has been—that has been passed and 

is starting to be implemented. And I would like to see what comes 

out of that, because we would like for children to be able to get 

here safely. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Would the gentleman yield on that point? 
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Mr. LABRADOR. Yes. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Because it is just actually just been started, the 

refugee application process, in Honduras only, not—it is not possible to apply in El Salvador, Guatemala now, but there is a new 

pilot effort. And I am hopeful that that will work, because none of 

us think it is a great idea for these kids to be traveling by themselves thousands of miles. 

And I thank the gentleman for yielding. 

Ms. PECK. Right. 

Mr. LABRADOR. So I now recognize the gentlelady from Texas. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me welcome the mayor of my neighboring city, the mayor of 

Stafford. 

Thank you, Mayor, for being here. We see each other often. And 

thank you so very much for your service to our community and to 

the Nation. 

Let me, if I might, we use these hearings to educate ourselves 

and certainly to educate our witnesses as we exchange important 

ideas, because that is what this process is all about. 

So I do want to follow up on your testimony, Mayor, and just 

want to make sure you feel comfortable that, in the State of Texas, 

if unaccompanied children are to be housed, you would have no 

fear, because every facility, whether they were in Stafford or Houston, would have to be licensed, and so, during that, you would be 

notified. 

Are you aware of any licensed facilities in Stafford that have the 

unaccompanied children? 

Mr. SCARCELLA. We do not have a licensed facility in Stafford, 

Congresswoman. 

And let me just say this. What my fear is and what we have had 

a couple of situations, which, fortunately, didn’t materialize the 

way we anticipated initially, but we would have situations where 

the police department got calls in the early morning about having 

to do something in regard to a particular individual who they 

thought might be an unaccompanied alien. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. But it didn’t turn out to be that. 

Mr. SCARCELLA. It did not. 

And I want to say one thing, since you brought up about Houston 

and Stafford. We in Texas and our emergency services director and 

our emergency services coordinator have a great relationship with 

ICE and with the CPS. And that is something that we feel very 

comfortable with, in communicating with them. We would just like 

to make sure we have the best communication—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And we will. 

And so, could you just answer this ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no’’? Do you think 

it is important to fully fund Homeland Security and fund it for an 

entire year? Would you say ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no’’? 

Mr. SCARCELLA. Yes. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And I am glad that you said that because we 

are in the midst of a debate about partial funding of Homeland Security, and we have one of the major city mayors saying that that 

would not be the right direction. 

Let me ask the sheriff, Sheriff, do you know what the population 

of Massachusetts is? 
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Sheriff HODGSON. I don’t know the population of Massachusetts—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Can you just give me a guesstimate maybe? 

Sheriff HODGSON. Not off the top of my head, Congresswoman. 

I can tell you my county is 650,000. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Okay. And I understand that the population 

in the last census was 6.6 million. 

Do you know how many, in the last fiscal year, unaccompanied 

children that you may have had? 

Sheriff HODGSON. In Bristol County, we had 90 in—just between 

January and August, we had 90 placed in our county. We had 

1,400 placed in Massachusetts. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. In actuality, the number was 1,372 between 

2013 to 2014, and you just recently got 33. 

So juxtapose that number against 900,000 in your county and 

then 6.6 million. When we look at the numbers, it doesn’t appear 

to be a crisis. 

Are you trying to suggest that the youngsters who are in your 

jurisdiction, are these the ones that walked across the border and 

walked to Massachusetts? Is that what you are saying? 

Sheriff HODGSON. Well, we don’t know that all of them walked 

across the border. We know they are being placed there, but there 

is a number that are—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Yeah, but did they—— 

Sheriff HODGSON. Congresswoman—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE [continuing]. Did they just randomly walk 

across and then randomly get to Massachusetts? 

Sheriff HODGSON. We have some in our county that aren’t accounted for in the numbers you are referring to, absolutely. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. And how do you know they are unaccounted 

for? 

Sheriff HODGSON. Because we have far more illegals. We have— 

we have got—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. But we are talking about unaccompanied children. 

I guess the question I am asking is, in particular, you know there 

is a process—and, by the way, I introduced legislation for more immigration judges—there is a process. They are processed at the 

border. There is a proceeding. We need more immigration judges; 

we agree with you on that. And then they are placed. 

And they may be placed with parents, who are paying taxes in 

your community. And they may not be paying income taxes, but 

they are paying the local taxes because, by their very existence, 

they have to pay taxes on food, on utilities, on rent. They are doing 

that. 

So juxtapose against 900,000. I am trying to understand what 

your burden may be for 1,400 children. 

Mr. LABRADOR. The gentlelady’s time has expired, and we have 

two more people who need to question, and we need to go vote. So 

if—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, I think you went over your 

time, and I—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. I know, but we have to go—— 
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Ms. JACKSON LEE [continuing]. Would like the gentleman to be 

able to answer the question. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Well, the problem is that Luis and Mr. Garcia will 

not be able to ask their questions at all—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. Yes. 

Ms. LOFGREN [continuing]. If we don’t stick to the 5-minute rule. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Well, let me—with that acknowledged, I will 

thank the gentleman for his answers. 

I yield back. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you. 

I now recognize the gentleman from Illinois. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Thank you, Chairman Labrador. 

Well, I guess we have once again the, kind of, tale of two cities 

here. We have one person that sees children in need of protection 

fleeing such harm in Central America, Honduras in particular, the 

murder capital of world. That is how she sees them. She sees them 

as human beings. And then we have other people who have come 

to testify, and they see them as criminals, drug dealers, rapists, 

murderers, and people who show up never having touched a pencil. 

I am in such fear of anybody coming to America with not having 

touched a pencil. The last time I thought about somebody having 

not touched a pencil, I think of my own two daughters when they 

were infants and little girls, and I assure you, they inspired no fear 

in me. One day, they did touch a pencil. And one day, all of those 

children, because they arrived in America, will learn not only about 

a pencil but they will learn about the goodness of this Nation, the 

United States of America. 

I mean, how can we come here and talk about studies for immigration? There are 1-million-plus refugees right now in Jordan. 

There are 1-million-plus refugees right now in Lebanon; in Turkey, 

1 million that left and fled the Assad regime. If we were to take 

your practices, I guess they would all be sent right back to Assad 

to be murdered by that regime. That is what you are saying. 

Sheriff HODGSON. No, I am not. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. And don’t shake your head. That is exactly what 

it is. 

The problem that you have, sir—let me tell you what the problem—— 

Sheriff HODGSON. If you would let me respond, Congressman. I 

would like to respond. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. No. I am speaking. 

Sheriff HODGSON. Okay. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. I am speaking. 

The problem that you have is that when you see, you see children, you see criminals, you see demonization. But let me just 

share something with you. When my mom and my dad and approximately a million Puerto Ricans came to this country as American citizens, as American citizens to the United States of America, 

the same thing you say about the immigrants and the children 

crossing the border were said about my mom and my dad, and they 

came as American citizens. They said, could you only stop them 

from coming from that tropical island, bringing tropical diseases? 

It wasn’t like my mom and dad, as American citizens, when they 
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came here—but they were seen as different. They were seen as 

somebody who was threatening. 

But it wasn’t only my mom and my dad. Let me tell you, the 

same assertions that have been made here today were made about 

Italian immigrants, were made about Irish immigrants, were made 

about Chinese immigrants to the point that we had a Chinese Exclusion Act. 

Look, what we should be doing here is not demonizing and criminalizing children. We have one standard when it comes to what 

the countries of Lebanon should do and then another one, what we 

should do with people fleeing violence. 

I think the real problem here is, when we look at our immigration policies, if it is, like, from a tyrannical dictator, we say, oh, 

okay, maybe we should accept those people. But let me tell you, the 

tyranny that exists, the life which is lost in Central America? It is 

our border. It is our border. 

Now, it seems interesting to me that—what is it that fuels all of 

this? The police kind of said, the sheriff said it was the drug dealers and the drug cartels. Let me think. The drug cartels that use 

American dollars, American weapons, because of the consumption 

of the drugs right here in the United States of America? Those 

drug cartels? 

Then what is our responsibility, as the main provider of funding 

and arms in Central America that have a destructive and corrosive 

effect on those societies, that then make little girls coming with 

never having touched a pencil in their life? What fear it brings into 

my heart and to my soul as an American that I would see such a 

child. You know what I say? I say, then let’s give them a pencil 

so they can learn how to write, so they can be educated. 

That should be—we should be a country that understands the 

tradition. I mean, I could understand if there were three Native 

Americans there saying, ‘‘What are you doing in my country?’’ But 

this is a Nation of immigrants. 

And the same kind of testimony—but here is the good thing. 

Your arguments have been rejected in the past time and time 

again. They are not new. There is nothing novel that you are saying here today. They have been rejected in the past by America, 

they were rejected today by America, and they are going to be rejected, because that is the greatness of this Nation. 

What we should be doing is we should be having a conversation 

about comprehensive immigration reform and reforming our immigration system. 

Last thing I am going to say. Nothing here today has put one 

more Border Patrol agent on the border to secure us against the 

border, not one thing you have said—or E-Verify to make sure that 

Americans are the first ones in line for American jobs. Nothing you 

have said has made us safer. 

What it has is—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ [continuing]. It just repeats a history that we 

have heard before. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you, Mr. Gutierrez. 

And now I will yield a couple of minutes to the gentleman from 

Florida. 
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Mr. GARCIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. 

Sheriff, I know you are trying to do your job, and I appreciate 

you have a tough job to do. 

Sheriff, I would suggest to you you read a—there is a wonderful 

piece called ‘‘The Myth of the Deceased Immigrant.’’ As Mr. Gutierrez points out, this is nothing new. It exists, and it is a human reaction to what they fear, to what they don’t know. 

I will give you just one fact of that. Sheriff, do you know what 

percentage of American children are vaccinated? 

Sheriff HODGSON. Vaccinated? 

Mr. GARCIA. Vaccinated. Just general vaccination. 

Sheriff HODGSON. I don’t. 

Mr. GARCIA. Well, it is about 92 percent. In Texas, it is much 

lower, but—in big cities, it is much lower. But the average nationally is 92 percent. 

However, do you know what the average is of the three countries—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—for children? It is 

93 percent. All right? They are vaccinated in a more regular—probably because there is a program just set up to do that and requires 

people to do it. 

I am sure in Massachusetts you have all sorts of parents that decide they don’t want their kids vaccinated, all sorts of reasons, and 

we have a sort of ability to exclude that. 

You mention about these children coming to the United States 

not having parents. Sheriff, do you know what percentage of these 

children were going to be reunited with one or both parents, just 

as a ballpark? 

Sheriff HODGSON. Don’t know the percentage, no. 

Mr. GARCIA. Fifty-five percent of these children were reunited 

with their parents. 

And then, finally, Sheriff, do you know what the two safest cities, 

large cities, in America are? 

Mr. HODGSON. I don’t. 

Mr. GARCIA. They are San Diego and El Paso, Texas, right there 

on the border, right there where all these drug trafficking children—— 

Sheriff HODGSON. May I respond to that, Congressman? 

Mr. GARCIA. Absolutely, sir. 

Sheriff HODGSON. Well, that would have a lot to do with the fact 

that the illegals that are coming across don’t stay there. They migrate their way into our communities across the Nation. And that 

is why we are becoming border States. 

Mr. GARCIA. Sheriff, they migrate to my community, too. 

Sheriff HODGSON. Okay. 

Mr. GARCIA. And they are a resource and a—— 

Sheriff HODGSON. But that would be the reason why, Congressman, that they aren’t having—— 

Mr. GARCIA. No, I understand your point. 

Sheriff HODGSON [continuing]. The crime problem in those communities. 

Mr. GARCIA. I understand your point, Sheriff. But the reality is 

that—you scream at the border, but the reality is that—do you 

know, for example, in the last decade if we are spending more on 

the border or less? 
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Sheriff HODGSON. I can assure you—— 

Mr. GARCIA. The Chairman has called—— 

Sheriff HODGSON. I am sorry. I thought you asked a question. I 

am sorry. 

Mr. GARCIA [continuing]. My time here, but I appreciate you all 

being here. Thank you. 

Sheriff HODGSON. Thank you. Thank you, Congressman. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you very much, Mr. Garcia. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Before we close—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. Before we close, I just want to give Mr. Hodgson 

just 30 seconds to respond. 

There were a lot of allegations coming your direction. Do you 

have anything to say, just for 30 seconds? 

Sheriff HODGSON. Other than the fact that the sheriffs in this 

country have—we have our boots on the ground, we know exactly 

what is going on on the border. I know there are a lot of people 

who sort of surmise what is happening and hear different arguments, but we know exactly what is happening, and we know what 

is happening with ICE in regards to not being able to enforce border security. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you. 

Ms. Lofgren? 

Ms. LOFGREN. I would just like to say briefly what a pleasure it 

has been to serve with Congressman Joe Garcia. I think this is 

probably Mr. Garcia’s last meeting of the Immigration Subcommittee. He has a fine mind and is a very diligent person and 

has really represented his district with tremendous distinction and 

grace and hard work. 

And we wish you well in the future. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Would the gentlelady yield? Would the 

gentlelady yield? 

Ms. LOFGREN. I will yield, but we have to go because—— 

Mr. LABRADOR. We have to go. 

Ms. LOFGREN [continuing]. We are running out of time on the 

vote. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me add my appreciation to Mr. Garcia. I 

have seen him work both in Washington and out of Washington. 

He is an asset to this Nation. 

And let me thank U.S. Catholic Charities for your distinctive 

work and your humanitarian work and the particular work you do 

in Houston, Texas. 

I yield back. 

Mr. LABRADOR. Thank you. 

With unanimous consent, I would like to enter into the record a 

press release by the Brunswick County, Virginia, Sheriff’s Office 

dated June 20, 2014, and a National Review article entitled, ‘‘The 

Obama Official Responsible for Sending Unaccompanied Illegal Minors Across the Country Is Resigning,’’ dated December 9, 2014. 

[The information referred to follows:] 
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Mr. LABRADOR. With that, this concludes today’s hearing. We 

thank all of the witnesses for joining us today. 

Without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days to 

submit additional written questions for the witnesses or additional 

materials for the record. 

And this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:43 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 
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